Flamingo-ing

Inspiration can come from many different sources.  Recently we were inspired by another blog in our learning journey. 

Sometimes, inspiration can just jump out from the pages of a library book.

We are in the middle of learning about birds.  Keegan, my 3 year old, picked out this book on Flamingo's at the library.

It prompted some expected fun!  After discovering that Flamingo's build their nests out of mud and lay only 1 white egg in it, I asked the boys if they could build a nest like the flamingo's do...

So the boys set out to the mudpit to formulate their own nest. 

Recently there has been a resurgance of their interest in mommy's and daddy's.  They take turns pretending to be both. 

My sisters and I did this growing up and for some reason I thought this was solely a girl phenomena, but apparently not. (I'm sure they will want to kill me for writing this someday.)

So I was not surprised at how delighted they were to discover that both the mother and father flamingo take equal roles in building the nest, incubating the egg and raising the young.

When the mud nest had dried, which in our desert 'spring' heat took only a few hours, the boys set out with a leftover plastic Easter egg and set it in place.

And then took turns incubating it...

Meanwhile the two year old was content to explore the mud!

We followed this up with a trip to the zoo, to observe real flamingo's!  It was amazing to hear both boys excitedly fill me in on all they remembered from our reading.

And while it was fun to try and imitate a flamingo, we all agreed that we much prefer the human way of taking naps!

I love how learning can be so natural and just flow out of a child's interest or a book discovered.  There was no prep work involved and yet the payoff is huge.  I need to remember to be on the look-out for opportunities like these and not get too caught up in my teaching agenda all of the time...